While I am focusing on Roman jewelry my partner Ellie is focusing on Roman clothing the other aspect of our project.. Our research can be seen in Ellie and my final product, which is a poster showing the different types of jewelry and their relation to a Roman’s socioeconomic status.
Jewelry played an important role in the everyday lives of women living in ancient Rome. From commoners to those who were wealthy, jewelry had an essential role in their outfits. It was used not only as an accessory but also as a way to convey their status of wealth. Wealthy women, with the help of a slave women, would choose her jewelry everyday from an extensive collection. Often wealthy women wore several pieces of jewelry consisting of necklaces, rings, and bracelets. Gold and silver as well as colored gemstones and glass made up the materials. Pearl, amethyst, and emerald were the preferred stones.
Men wore jewelry too and also used it as a tool to demonstrate wealth and power. Men typically wore less jewelry, the most common being signa(finger rings) and fibulae(brooches) in which they wore multiple at a time. Men would also sometimes wear pendants. Bureaucrats and senators wore large rings, which were often gold with large gemstones in the middle.
The lower class wore jewelry made of other less expensive metals such as bronze and iron. The common people, also called plebeians, were allowed only to wear rings made of iron. Constricting rules on the rights to wear certain types of jewelry gradually relaxed and women and men alike were more inclined to wear multiple rings made of varied materials. New techniques and technologies allowed for mass production of pieces, which made jewelry less expensive and more accessible to the commoners.
In ancient Roman culture, jewelry was an important part of life, as it not only appealed to their aesthetic values but also was used to demonstrate status, wealth, power, and knowledge.
Works Cited
Clancy, Jean. “A Brief Introduction to Ancient Roman Jewelry.” Historyplex, Historyplex, 2016,
historyplex.com/ancient-roman-jewelry.
Phinney, Ed. Cambridge Latin Course: Unit 1. Cambridge University Press for the Schools Council,
2000.
Richter, Gisela. “Roman Jewelry.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 May 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_jewelry.
World Eras. Ed. John T. Kirby. Vol. 3: Roman Republic and Empire, 264 B.C.E.- 476 C.E.. Detroit:
Gale, 2001.p268-271.
I liked how you went into detail about the types of jewelry and who could wear them.
brynnsofro, your topic is so interesting, I had no idea that jewelry was so important to the ancient Romans! Did certain types of jewelry represent more wealth then other types?